With funding from the Singapore Land Authority, Nanyang Polytechnic’s (NYP) School of Engineering created the Nanyang Polytechnic Campus Navigation System. The system was created earlier this year, and will be rolled out to all users in its campus in the coming months.Using location-based analytics, the system provides a detailed map of the campus – totaling 25 buildings spread over 305,000 square meters. Beyond its ability to pinpoint the exact locations of lecture halls, tutorial rooms and other facilities in the polytechnic, the system also guides users to their desired destinations using the most efficient routes. This capability is not limited to two points on the same level, but also utilizes lifts, escalators and stairways to provide easy navigation to all corners of the campus – a feature not available in other mapping platforms.The service can be accessed by staff and students through an Intranet web application. Visitors can also utilize this function by scanning the QR code while logged onto the campus Wi-Fi system.“Nanyang Polytechnic welcomes more than 4,000 new students and visitors annually. With seven different schools and over 30 corporate departments, it can be challenging for people unfamiliar with the campus to find their way around. For our School of Engineering students, the process of development has enabled them to experience, first-hand, the application of technology as a solution to everyday problems,” said Dr. Kong Wai Ming, Deputy Manager at the School of Engineering, Nanyang Polytechnic, who leads this initiative.Dr. Kong added that the database can be used for future on-campus location analytics projects. For example, NYP is currently developing an integrated campus navigation system catered to the visually impaired. The system will provide an audio description of the prescribed path when guiding users to their desired destination.Additionally, Dr. Kong noted that the use of location-based technology in navigation systems can be applied to areas with high volume of visitors, with certain hospitals expressing interest in replicating this platform.
Caption: Screen capture of Route Finder (Credit - NYP)

Kaltura, a video technology provider, published on 20 September its fourth annual State of Video in Education report, an international study that examines the evolving use of video in education. A total of 1,000 respondents undertook the online survey between May and June 2017. The group included educators, instructional designers, IT professionals, digital media professionals, senior administrators and students from around the globe, with 81% drawn from higher education and 11% from K-12 (primary/secondary) institutions and the remainder from education technology organizations, educational nonprofits, and other education-related institutions.The results reveal a significant increase in the use of video for remote teaching and learning with 66% of respondents stating that their institutions now use these capabilities, up from 28% in 2016. Interestingly, 39% of those surveyed state that students studying remotely at their institution are already using video-based solutions to join live classes and lectures, while a further 49% are keen to add these capabilities to their offerings. Remote video capabilities are also being used to let presenters who are not based at the institution teach and hold lectures for students, with 54% of all respondents saying that they are already benefiting from this.The survey also highlights lecture capture as a major growth area. This may be due to the growing availability of affordable, ‘one-click’ lecture capture software that runs on any Windows computer. This year, 59% of respondents say their institutions are using lecture capture tools, up from 33% in 2016. Furthermore, while only 38% of institutions surveyed capture more than 25% of their classrooms, 47% of respondents are keen to extend this to cover at least half of their classrooms in the foreseeable future.Other notable findings include:Teaching skills by recording students practicing in class is up from 33% last year to 54% in 2017, perhaps a reflection of the growing demand for video-based training and playback for courses such as nursing and veterinary science.
Flipped classrooms are growing in popularity after the initial hype, with 53% now using this approach, up from 45% a year ago.
Almost half (45%) are using mobile apps to let students watch videos on the go, with a further 48% keen to follow their lead.In Asia, improving global rankings of local universities in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea are drawing more international students into the region. Besides top performing local universities, Singapore, China and Hong Kong, for instance, have a relatively high concentration of branch campuses of UK, US, and Australian universities that offer internationally recognized degrees, hence making them sought after by Asian and international students. Furthermore, with the increased popularity and credibility of online degrees, a growing number of teaching institutions and students are embracing higher learning online courses.Eylon Cohen, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific - Enterprise and Education, Kaltura comments: “Widespread adoption of video technology holds high potential across Asia due to a number of reasons. Firstly, there is a sizeable population of adult learners that are pursuing continuing education either for skills upgrade or for a career switch. These mature learners also include aged and retired individuals in the pursuit of lifelong learning, an initiative well supported by the Singapore Government. With the growing international student mobility into Asia, network universities and branch campuses are increasingly offering flipped classrooms, lecture capture and on demand videos of local and overseas instructors for enhanced education outcomes. This will highly appeal to today’s youth who are largely comprised of digital natives, being very much attuned to consuming content and videos online for learning.”“Moving ahead, Kaltura foresees the growing number of digital natives and mature learners as the catalysts that will drive the widespread adoption of video across the regional education sector,” says Cohen.Download a copy of the report here.

Infortrend Technology, Inc. has launched their new EonStor GSe Pro 1000 series with a small 4 or 8-bay rackmount design.Designed for SMBs and SMEs that want entry level storage systems, the series supports data storage, file sharing, cloud integration, and all RAID functions to easily run local SAN/NAS applications, according to the company.The company says the new EonStor GSe Pro 1000 series provides a compact 1U 4-bay or 2U 8-bay NAS system with a quad-core processor and four embedded 1GbE ports to boost productivity. It also supports AES-NI hardware encryption engine to lower CPU loading, maintain system performance and security, while redundant power supplies increase service continuity, making it ideal for surveillance, backup, file sharing, and email servers.The EonStor GSe Pro family features two rackmount series, and is designed for SMBs with easy storage management and complete data services. The small rackmount designed EonStor GSe Pro 1000 series is an entry level storage, while the EonStor GSe Pro 3000 series offers higher performance and a capacity of up to 436 drives.The high speed 2U 8-bay EonStor GSe Pro 3008 is available for those that demand faster performance.

The most costly cybersecurity breaches for businesses of all sizes result from the failures of third parties, which means that companies should not only invest in their own protection, but also pay attention to that of their business partners, according to a new study from Kaspersky Lab and B2B International.According to the report “IT Security: Cost-Center or Strategic Investment?,” SMBs this year had to pay up to $140K for incidents affecting infrastructure hosted by a third party, while enterprises lost nearly two million dollars ($1.8M) as a result of breaches affecting suppliers that they share data with, and $1.6M because of IaaS-providers’ insufficient levels of protection.SMBs paid an average of $87.8K per security incident (compared to $86.5k in 2016), while enterprises faced an even larger increase of $992K in 2017, compared to $861K in 2016,.This year’s study reveals promising developments in the importance being placed on IT security. Businesses globally are starting to view it as a strategic investment and the share of IT budgets that is being spent on IT security is growing, reaching almost a quarter (23%) of IT budgets in large corporations.This pattern is consistent across businesses of all sizes, including very small businesses where resources are usually in short supply. However, while security appears to be receiving a larger proportion of the IT budget pie, the pie itself is getting smaller. For example, the average IT security budget for enterprises in absolute terms dropped from $25.5M last year to $13.7M in 2017.This is a concern for businesses, especially given the fact that - unlike IT security budgets - security breaches aren’t getting cheaper to recover from.Nonetheless, raising IT security budgets is only part of the solution, as the most staggering losses stem from the incidents involving third parties and their cyber-failures.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia and 21 other countries in Asia Pacific will get access and support to the cloud solutions and resources they need to power digital transformation with the opening of Oracle's first Digital Hub in Southeast Asia.Oracle's new Digital Hub in Malaysia is set to help SMEs leverage Oracle Cloud solutions to streamline operations, boost innovation and build a platform for growth.The Digital hub houses a newly hired digital team focused on helping midsize organizations transition to the cloud quickly and easily. It complements Oracle's broader Asia Pacific digital sales and support functions based in KL, which service the local market as well as 21 countries across the region."The cloud is democratizing IT; you just need a web browser or a mobile phone app to take advantage of it,” says François Lançon, senior vice president, Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific.“What's more, it has incredible transformation potential for small businesses, enabling them to do things they have never been able to do before, at an affordable price, such as use technology to streamline business processes, gain access to an easy-to-use platform for innovation, and digitize their customer experience. We are simplifying the buying process to help these smaller organizations, as well as branch offices and line of business departments, digitally transform their business."Pranabesh Nath, Research Director, IDC Malaysia, said: "SME digital enablement is one of the most important aspects of increasing the digital economy contribution to Malaysia's GDP. IDC research indicates adoption of some of the 3rd platform technologies such as cloud and mobility has been increasing in the last 2 years.”Pranabesh notes that most large enterprises in Malaysia have some sort of cloud adoption plan, while almost 50% are using cloud services beyond one or 2 simple applications. “The situation for SMEs is not so bright though, and needs to be urgently rectified. SMEs have needs that differ from larger enterprises in this respect.”

Red Hat has launched its first Red Hat Open Innovation Labs in the Asia-Pacific region in Singapore, which reinforces the company’s commitment to accelerate innovation and digital transformation across the region.
Red Hat Open Innovation Labs help customers integrate people, methodology, and technology to catalyze innovation and solve business challenges in an accelerated fashion by working collaboratively in an immersive, residency-oriented lab environment with Red Hat experts at the new physical lab in Singapore or in a pop-up lab at a customer's site.
Through Red Hat Open Innovation Labs, IT teams work closely with Red Hat consultants, engineers and subject matter experts to modernize existing applications or create new ones with open source and DevOps.
The typical Red Hat Open Innovation Labs residency lasts anywhere from one to three months and provides IT professionals with the technologies, methods, and skills to accelerate business initiatives. Through hands-on instruction, teams can also learn how to adopt agile development methodologies, DevOps practices, and get immediate and direct experience with the open principles and open culture that underlie many open source communities.
As part of the Red Hat Open Innovation Labs engagement, customers can use microservices, deploy them in containers, and deliver them using DevOps methodologies across physical, cloud and mobile environments to more quickly scale up or down on-demand and help meet new requirements.
In addition to its location in Singapore, Red Hat also has physical Red Hat Open Innovation Labs in Boston and London.
Core features of an Open Innovation Labs residency include solving legacy problems or entirely new challenges; working on real business problems from Day 1; and learning to work the open source way; and innovating anywhere.
"Businesses across Asia Pacific are innovating, while many companies are using digital technologies to create greater value and a better customer experience,” said Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, SVP and general manager of Red Hat Asia Pacific. “We recognize their needs to fuel faster innovation and are excited to bring Red Hat Open Innovation Labs to this region.”
Van Leeuwen said the vision for Red Hat Open Innovation Labs is to introduce the open source way of working to our customers in a residency-style, virtual or pop-up setting.

The pace of innovation and disruption is rapid in financial services, with start-ups giving traditional financial firms strong competition. To embrace the growth of financial technology (Fintech), to follow regulation and to stay relevant in the market, banks are now opening up their customer databases for third-party application developers to build applications and provide innovative services.By allowing third-party application programming interface (API) providers to access their data, banks are able to form successful partnerships with developers and increase their customer servicing, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and retention rates.Frost & Sullivan’s research, Banking-as-a-Service to Bring Agility and Flexibility to Financial Services, Forecast to 2023, finds that API transactions in banking are expected to reach 1.7 billion by 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.4% between 2016 and 2023. The research provides an overview of Banking-as-a-Service (Baas) market dynamics, including technology trends in BaaS, and drivers and challenges for adoption.“The use of APIs within banking has given rise to new business models and innovative processes that increase the customer centricity quotient in their offerings. Incumbents from banking and financial service sectors are looking beyond legacy systems and analytics to drive customer satisfaction and retention,” stated Digital Transformation Global Program Director, Jean-Noël Georges. “Fintech start-up companies such as SolarisBank and Fidor have launched core banking platforms, enabling plug-and-play models. These platforms will enable banks to launch APIs at a quicker and rampant pace.”BaaS provides financial service providers and start-ups with tremendous growth opportunities, such as effective payments enablement, improved internal efficiency, increased customer retention, and quicker servicing.BaaS regional trends for open banking include:Germany has the highest number of banks in the European Union;
The European Union’s PSDII (Payments Services Directive) makes it mandatory for banks to make their data open to third-party services;
North America is slow to adopt open banking when compared to Europe;
M-Pesa in Kenya has 19 million users and processes 15 billion Kenyan shillings worth of payments every day;
The Indian government launched a national API-based payment application for accepting and remittance;
Orange Money Web Payment API boosts eCommerce in Africa;
WeChat’s wide use in China for payments;
Fintonic, a Madrid-based mobile payments company, plans to enter the Chile market through its API stack;
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirate, and Egypt have the highest rates of mobile banking;
India and China lead the way for open banking and API adoption; and
Banco Original in Latin America signed a partnership with CA technology to build an API platform.“By opening up databases to third-party developers/API providers, banks must be in a position to provide the best data security management,” noted Georges. “Financial organizations store a lot of customer data, such as addresses, account information and card details, attracting cyber-attacks and data thefts. Loss of this data would directly result in the loss of goodwill for the financial organization specifically with the GDPR to take place in Europe in 2018.”
Caption: Image by iStockPhoto

Meezan Bank to expand IT Infrastructure through virtualization and cloud

Islamic bank Meezen Bank plans to modernize its IT infrastructure across 571 branches and 146 cities in Pakistan.Under the agreement, Meezan Bank can tap on VMware’s industry leading platforms to build and deliver IT solutions. With the modernized IT infrastructure enabled by a suite of VMware solutions including VMware vSphere® with Operations Management™, VMware vCloud Suite® and VMware Site Recovery Manager™, the bank aims to increase the performance and efficiency of the IT resources through virtualization, speed up the delivery of solutions via private clouds, and strengthen the availability and mobility of critical applications.“This is just one of the many steps Meezan Bank will be taking to play its part to support the State Bank of Pakistan’s efforts to make Pakistan’s financial sector a digital leader in the decade ahead and to maintain Pakistan’s position as a mobile-first nation”, said Mr. Faizur Rehman, Head of Information Technology and Digital Banking, Meezan Bank.The partnership with VMware also means that the Bank is now able to scale rapidly based on demand and significantly reduce its operational and ownership costs. With VMware’s consumer simple yet enterprise secure solutions, Meezan Bank’s modernized IT infrastructure allows the bank to respond faster to customer needs while elevating the security and reliability of its services across all 571 branches.“Meezan Bank is a key stakeholder in Pakistan’s commendable journey of digital transformation. The bank recognizes how IT is able to not only create tangible business benefits, but new business opportunities as well”, said Adrian Hia, General Manager, Nascent Markets & Vietnam, VMware.
Caption: Meezan Bank

A study by Google and Temasek revealed that 6.7% of all retail sales is expected to be done via e-commerce channels by 2025. What is significant about this data is that offline or storefront sales will continue to dominate retail sales for a foreseeable future.At the same time, retailers recognize the importance of smartphone as a channel for engaging customers. According to Hootsuite-wearesocial data, there are 8.44 million mobile subscribers in a city with a population of 5.74 million. The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) pegs wireless broadband penetration at 206.7% as of June 2017.According to eMarketer, Google and Facebook dominate the digital advertising space accounting for over 60% of ad spending. Both have developed solutions to allow advertisers to measure conversion that happen offline.This September, Singapore has become only the third country in Asia Pacific, after Japan and Australia, to have available Google’s store visits measurement, a technology designed to help businesses understand the offline effects of their online advertising campaigns.When people are trying to find a local business, they often turn to Google for help. According to Google nearly one-third of all mobile searches are related to location. To help consumers decide where to go, marketers are using innovations like location extensions and local inventory ads to promote nearby stores.Store visits measurement was first introduced in 2014 to give advertisers deeper insight into consumer journeys that start online and end in a physical business location. Google claims that in a span of three years advertisers around the world have measured over 5 billion store visits using AdWords.Google has combined its mapping and proprietary machine learning technology to help businesses measure store visits with the highest degree of precision and accuracy. Store visits are calculated based on aggregated and anonymized data from users who opt in to activate Location History.Store visits measurement is currently available for Search, Shopping and Display campaigns. Soon, this technology will also be available for YouTube TrueView campaigns to help retailers measure the impact of video ads on foot traffic to physical stores.Stephanie Davis, Country Director, Google Singapore said, ‘Bridging the gap between the online and offline worlds is a crucial step for retailers to understand the full value of their digital investments. But it’s not an easy task. Starting from today, businesses in Singapore can use Google’s industry-leading technology to accurately measure the impact of their online advertising campaigns on in-store sales.’In an exclusive interview with Retail Tech Innovation (see video below), Leonie Valentine, managing director, sales and operation for Google Hong Kong says there is not enough of a joined up view of how they can use analytics and data in retailers’ businesses.She acknowledges that retailers desire to know more about how customers are searching for products in stores, but there remains a limited organizational capability to be able to find all that data about their customers, make sense of it and interrogate it.Caption: Image by iStockPhoto

Founded in 1894, the Singapore Swimming Club is located in Tanjong Rhu, a district in Singapore’s eastern region.The members-only recreational club spans more than 27,000 square meters, and includes a variety of sporting facilities like two Olympic-sized pools, tennis courts, squash courts and badminton courts. The club prides itself as a family club, regularly organizing recreational and social activities suitable for members of all ages.With ever-growing membership numbers, Singapore Swimming Club encountered mounting difficulties with managing member profiles and documents.Time was of key concern as information was manually filed in an off-premise storage facility. Retrieval and archival processes were tedious as there were copious amounts of documents to work through. Furthermore, movements of files were difficult to track as they were constantly transferred between several departments.In a bid to overcome these challenges, Singapore Swimming Club deployed Canon’s Document Management Solution to digitize the membership administration workflow. The solution electronically files all types of information from different sources, saving staff from making the trip from one office to the other.The deployment saw documents digitally archived in a central location so retrievals from various parties could be processed seamlessly, saving the company an estimated 20 man-hours a month that could be redirected toward other critical tasks.The solution’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature eliminated the need to flip through hundreds of pages to look for a single document. Instead, staff could use keywords to search for items, easing the process of locating particular files.Besides productivity concerns, Singapore Swimming Club also faced other challenges such as security issues arising from digitizing their documents, due to the sensitive nature of dealing with thousands of member credentials. The solution’s security features allowed for select access control, giving staff limited access to the documents they required respectively.ResistanceThe move to digitizing the organization was met with some institutional resistance. There was cynicism amongst senior staff members who were used to the traditional way of operations.However, staff gradually got accustomed to the new system. Part-timers and new employees were also able to familiarize themselves with the software within a day or two.For companies and organizations looking to deploy a similar solution, Singapore Swimming Club’s Director of IT Rajesh Kumar suggests considering three aspects: ease of use, customer service, and price. Of these, user-friendly experience and after-sales support are paramount as not all users are IT-savvy.“We evaluated a few solutions from various suppliers, but those two factors were imperative in implementing a solution,” said Kumar.

Salesforce is going big on AI, and it is good news for sales and marketing teams. The leading CRM company that many CMOs use as the foundation for their customer-based insights is going deeper into AI territory with three new enhancements: Einstein Forecasting, Einstein Opportunity Scoring and Einstein Email Insights.“Now, equipped with predictive and intelligent capabilities, Sales Cloud Einstein has cracked the traditionally flawed forecasting model, bringing AI to every step of the sales cycle,” said Adam Blitzer, the EVP and GM of Salesforce Sales Cloud in a press release.According to the press release, the new additions aim to “bring AI to every step of the sales cycle, from building pipeline and closing deals to growing the business.”Einstein Forecasting is targeted at sales leaders to CFOs, and aims to make business forecasting more predictable. It eliminates the problem of incomplete spreadsheets and old methods for sales projection forecasting, by using historic CRM data for more accurate forecasting.For CMOs, the new feature will help them to get a better picture of the pipelines, and improve their marketing funnel accordingly. For sales leaders, it will increase the number of deals closed against forecasts, reduce missed quotas and avoid revenue shortfalls.“Accurate sales forecasting has been a longstanding challenge for many companies. By combining intelligence, pipeline transparency and key sales data, Einstein Forecasting provides a crucial view of sales revenue indicators that helps business leaders correctly predict business growth,” said Sheryl Kingstone, a research director at 451 Research.Next, Einstein Opportunity Scoring identifies, surfaces and prioritizes the most valuable deals within the firm’s Sales Cloud. It also monitors deals in progress to highlight any high-value opportunities that may be in trouble. Simply put, it tells them which deals will close, and which deals are in trouble and needs better attention.The new feature keeps sales leaders focused on deals that matter, improve their ability to finely track outcomes and build a better pipeline. CMOs can gain by understanding where some deals are faltering and boost their marketing campaigns accordingly. Finally, Einstein Email Insights offers a new personal email assistant to all sales representatives. Using natural language processing (NLP), it highlights emails that are most important, and recommends the appropriate response or action. This helps to solve email inboxes that are cluttered with thousands of emails, and allows reps to take proactive actions on deals that are important.The new Einstein features are currently in pilot and expected to be generally available in the first half of 2018.Further reading:Salesforce adds AI to its CRM for better customer experiencesTwo trends marketers need to watch out for in 2017 Publicis, Microsoft to create new AI capabilities for CMOs
Caption: Image credit: iStockphoto by Getty Images

It’s just business! That would be the statement of fact that money launderers would when explaining what they do. As a business, it is money laundering represents the fifth largest economy in the world and equates to 2-5% of global GDP according to the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime.Accounting for almost US$2 trillion each year, money laundering remains a recurring problem for most economies in the world. The latest Basel AML Index report ranks New Zealand as having the lowest money laundering risk in Asia Pacific. Singapore is ranked 4th lowest while Hong Kong is at 7th and Malaysia at 8th place.At the opposite end of the table, the bottom of the list had Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar holding the less than glamorous appealing reputation.RELATED: How sidestepping AML in Asia worksIn the booklet “The Invisible Network” BAE Systems lists six criminal types responsible for money laundering around the world, to help global businesses understand the motivations and modus operandi of criminals targeting their business.The Source – White collar fraudsters and organised crime gangs making illegal profit from their crimes. As a result of operating outside the law they need their money ‘cleaned’ before it can be used.
The Leader – Leaders are clinging to power and stripping their country of wealth to line their own pockets. Their outcast status causes the Leader to resort to subterfuge to hide their funds and spend money on the things that keep them in power.
The Bystander – Bystanders don’t facilitate crime but are happy to turn a blind eye while their mysterious client lines their pockets.
The Watched – People on international watch lists who could either be corrupted or facilitate corruption for a price.
The Shark – Sharks enable crime by helping move illicit funds through the banking system, profiting themselves along the way.
The Shop Front – Legitimate-looking businesses that exist to launder money, catering specifically to criminals. Divya Khangarot, head of Sales South East Asia at BAE Systems said: “The regulatory landscape in Singapore is changing rapidly as MAS increases its activity to fight money laundering, but there are still gaps that need to be addressed. There needs to be a new era of collaboration between the financial services industry, law enforcement, regulators, technology partners and compliance specialists. Helping business to understand the motivations and modus operandi of the people behind money laundering is a critical first step to helping organizations successfully protect themselves against this threat.”
Caption: Image by iStockPhoto

Coming this October 2017, Co-Operative Limited Bank (CB Bank) plans to make available in Myanmar contactless payments acceptance. CB Bank will facilitate the development of a network of Mastercard Contactless-enabled merchants across over 5,000 of its access points in Myanmar by the end of 2017, including supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol stations.“The launch of contactless payments is an important step forward for Myanmar’s e-payment journey. Contactless payments delivers greater convenience and security to consumers and merchants and is widely adopted as a preferred payment mode all around the world,” said Donald Ong, Country Manager, Thailand and Myanmar, Mastercard. What is interesting about this announcement is that a little over a year before this announcement by Mastercard and CB Bank, the two organizations made a similar claim to launching the country’s first contactless payment service in the form of CB EasiTravel Prepaid MasterCard Contactless card the (click here to see the 2016 announcement). The difference was that the 2016 announcement was focused on contactless payments for Myanmar consumers traveling outside the country.What is consistent is the intent to provide payment experience that is fast, safe and convenient according to U Kyaw Lynn, CEO & Vice Chairman at CB Bank.The October launch will see contactless payment extended locally for everyday purchases.

Ride-hailing platform Grab has improved the accuracy of fare estimations, ETAs and trip routing for its more than 60 million passengers through an expanded partnership with global map data and location services provider, HERE Technologies.Grab drivers and passengers now benefit from some of the region’s most accurate and fresh map content, thanks to HERE’s three-dimensional representation of the physical world within its HD Live Map.The cloud-based map, which sees a fleet of HERE True vehicles continuously map the road network down to 2 cm accuracy, supports driver safety through automated car features and connected Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS).“Southeast Asia is developing quickly, with new roads and new rules emerging every day,” said Jerald Singh, Head of Product at Grab. “By layering local map data on top of HERE’s comprehensive location data, we can optimize driver-passenger interactions and further streamline our backend dispatch systems.”The partnership will see HERE provide location services in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, which Grab will combine with real-world on-road data sourced from its 1.3 million drivers - Southeast Asia’s largest land transport fleet.HERE will also provide its extensive Places of Interest (POIs) database gathered through public sector and enterprise partners such as Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft, and as well as real-time traffic data sourced from connected vehicles and devices.Overcome challengesThe data-sharing partnership will overcome the challenges of operating in rapidly developing countries, such as Myanmar and the Philippines, which have no established national address system. For example, HERE has almost completed a two year 45,000km mission to create the first ever comprehensive digital map of the Philippine road network.HERE’s vehicle cameras and LiDAR technology capture over 500 different attributes such as road geometry, speed limits and road signs to create a high definition machine readable 3D map down to two-centimeter accuracy.HERE’s Matrix API forms the foundation of the collaboration, enabling Grab to improve the way drivers are assigned to passengers. In addition, HERE’s Basic Routing API provides ride hailers with more reliable ETAs and corresponding fare estimations.

Lion Air Group, the largest private airline carrier in Indonesia, is to enhance aviation safety management with software from Ideagen.
Ideagen Coruson, Ideagen’s enterprise cloud-based software, will be implemented as an organization-wide safety, reporting and risk management solution.
The software will provide Lion Air Group with safety performance oversight across its six affiliated AOCs, delivering detailed performance data to quickly highlight potential safety weaknesses and risks, such as those linked to pilot fatigue or aircraft incidents.
Coruson will replace an older system, helping to strengthen the airline’s safety culture through functionality such as smart forms, GEO tagging and a mobile app for detailed reporting.
“Ideagen Coruson will be our dedicated safety, quality, risk and reporting solution and it will provide us with excellent functionality to enhance a number of areas within the organization, particularly our safety reporting and risk management,” said Jose Fernandez, group safety and quality director at Lion Air Group.
“Our current system offers no easy way to gauge safety performance across any of our affiliates, resulting in difficulties when trying to assess overall airline performance,” said Fernandez. Coruson will change this.
Based in Jakarta, Lion Air Group flies to more than 183 routes across all corners of Indonesia from Sabang to Merauke as well as through several international countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, India, China and Saudi Arabia.
“Coruson is scalable and the main value we will see from the system is that scalability and ease of deployment across three countries and six AOCs,” said Fernandez.
“The number of services we will be able to offer will continue to grow because of the aviation market in Indonesia, which continues to grow rapidly,” added Fernandez. “Ideagen Coruson will tie in nicely with our ambitious growth plan.”
Ideagen currently has more than 300 aviation clients across the globe, including Emirates, the International Airlines Group, Ryanair, Thomas Cook, Flybe and KLM.